These 19 companies are racing to put driverless cars on the road by 2020

When 2020 hits, you can bet it will start the decade of driverless cars.

Volvo

We rounded up 19 companies aiming to have driverless car technology ready by 2020, some even declaring their fully autonomous car will be hitting the roads at that time. (Assuming the various necessary regulations are in place, of course.)

Here's who is in the race to make driverless cars a reality just four years from now.

Tesla is aiming to have its driverless technology ready by 2018.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Tesla CEO Elon Musk committed to the 2018 timeline in September, but it's unlikely we'll see one on the road. Musk himself said that it's unlikely regulators will be ready for driverless cars to hit the roads in 2018, so we'll have to wait to see how that plays out.

If Tesla succeeds in building a fully autonomous car by 2020, Uber has declared it will buy 500,000.

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"Travis [Kalanick] recently told me that in 2020, if Teslas are autonomous, he'd want to buy all of them," said Steve Judson, a board member and early investor in Tesla. "And I was like, 'What?' And he's like 'All 500,000 estimated for 2020 production, I want them all.' But he couldn't get a return call from Elon, so he was like, whatever."

BMW will introduce a fully self-driving car in 2021.

BMW

Called the iNext, BMW's electric and fully driverless car is slated to arrive in 2021.

BMW showed off some of its self-driving tech in its all-electric i3 concept, which can park itself and come back to pick you up when you're ready. The BMW 7 series also already comes with driverless features like lane keeping assist and side collision protection.

Volvo is aiming to make its cars "deathproof" by 2020 by rolling out semi-autonomous features in its cars, eventually working up to fully driverless ones.

Volvo

Volvo's "most advanced autonomous driving experiment" will occur in China, where 100 volunteers will be able to test driverless Volvo XC90s on public roads. The experiment is part of its DriveMe program that will also test 100 driverless Volvos in Gothenburg, Sweden and London in 2017.

By 2020, Volvo plans to be well on its way to having a fully autonomous car.

Nissan is committed to have a commercially viable autonomous car on the roads by 2020.

Nissan

Nissan wrote on their website that it has "achieved the technological advancements necessary to begin to make this fiction a reality" by that date.

The automaker is releasing ProPILOT, a self-driving feature that lets cars drive autonomously on highways, in August in Japan. But the system will eventually roll out in Europe, China, and the US. Nissan will continue to add driverless capabilities to ProPILOT until it has a fully self-driving car in 2020.

Ford is aiming to have its fully autonomous car ready in four to five years.

Ford

Ken Washington, Ford's vice president of research and advanced engineering, told Tech Insider the company aims to have its fully autonomous vehicles ready in four to five years. But Washington added that it doesn't expect laws will be in place to operate autonomously.

Ford is particularly invested in making sure its driverless cars are accessible when they do hit the market.

"What we have said is, we may not be the first, but when we do, it will be true to our brand, which means accessibility," Ford CEO Mark Fields recently told Business Insider. "We want to make sure it's available to everyone, and not just folks who can afford luxury cars."

To make it accessible, Ford may roll out its autonomous vehicles in a fleet for mobility services.

Ford showed its driverless cars can successfully navigate in complete darkness in April. The cars can also drive successfully in snow. The automaker also has 30 driverless cars in its fleet, the largest of any automaker.

General Motors will have a fleet of self-driving cars available for employee use in late 2016.

(GM's self-driving concept car the EN-V)

GM will test driverless prototypes on its Warren Technical Center campus by the end of this year, according to Wired. The automaker is serious about getting driverless technology to the market, which is why it bought self-driving car startup Cruise Automation in March for $1 billion. But we have yet to hear a precise deadline on when it could be ready.

Daimler, the maker of the Mercedes-Benz, plans to have its driverless trucks ready by 2020.

Daimler

In October, A Mercedes-Benz big-rig made history by driving itself on a public road, marking the first time a big-rig drove semi-autonomously on a highway. Daimler said in 2015 that its driverless trucks are two to three years away from production, Daily Mail reported.

Daimler has always had aggressive plans for driverless cars, boldly stating in 2013 that they wanted to be the first to have driverless production vehicles on the market.

"We want to be the first to launch autonomous functions in production vehicles. You can be sure we will accomplish that in this decade," Thomas Weber, Daimler head of development, said in 2013.

The Audi A7 drove 550 miles by itself in 2015, but there's no word about when it's hitting the market.

Audi

Although a date hasn't been set yet, Audi is not a company to sleep on. The automaker was the first company to receive an autonomous driving permit in Nevada in 2012 and California in 2014.

Baidu, a Beijing-based search company, is aiming to have a commercial model of its driverless car ready by 2018.

The modified BMW successfully performed tasks like u-turns, changing lanes, passing other cars, and merging on and off highways

Honda is aiming to have fully autonomous cars on the road in 2020.

Reuters/Noah Berger

Honda has been testing its autonomous cars at the Concord Naval Weapons Station in San Francisco since March 2015.

The automaker is developing forward-collision warning, lane- departure warning, and lane-keeping assist that it will roll out in its Acura and Civic cars this year, Reuters reported. Rolling out semi-autonomous features in its cars is part of Honda's plan to release a self-driving car by 2020.

Hyundai is aiming to have driverless features in its cars by 2020, but won't have a fully autonomous car ready until 2030.

Reuters/Steve Marcus

Hyundai is aiming to have autonomous features ready by 2020, but its premium vehicles like the Genesis already have driverless features like automatic braking, Reuters reported.

The automaker is aiming to have a fully self-driving car ready by 2030, Kwon Moon-sik, Hyundai Motor Group vice chairman, said at an event in Nov. 2015.

It's rumored that Apple is working on a driverless car, but the company has yet to confirm.

There are reports of the Apple car being developed in a secret lab in Berlin, Germany. But Apple could also be building the car in Vienna, Austria and a factory in Cork, Ireland. We also know Apple has met with officials from California's Department of Motor Vehicles to discuss state regulations for autonomous cars.

But the company is remaining hush on the rumored project. On another "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" in September, Apple CEO Tim Cook dodged the subject entirely, only stating: "We look at a number of things along the way, and we decide to really put our energies in a few of them."

Auto supplier Bosch has been working on driverless technology for several years with the ultimate goal of having an autonomous car ready in 2020.

Bosch

Bosch has been testing its driverless technology on public freeways in Germany, the US, and Japan since 2013. Above is a photo of the interior of one of its concept cars shown off at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

PSA Groupe, the second largest car manufacturer in Europe, is aiming to have fully driverless cars ready by 2020.

YouTube/ PSA Peugeot Citroën

Four of the automaker's self-driving cars traveled the 360 miles between Paris and Bordeaux, France in October. There was no driver involved for the entirety of the trip, and the cars were able to change lanes and adjust their speeds successfully.

Start-up Faraday Future is working on an electric car and is developing autonomous technology for it.

AP

Faraday Future unveiled its concept car, pictured above, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and described it as completely autonomous. The start-up told Business Insider that it will have prototypes that represent its production cars by the end of 2016. Its cars are slated to go into production by 2020.

LeEco, a Chinese tech company, is also working on an autonomous, electric car.

LeEco is working on a car dubbed the LeSEE, pictured above, that's fully autonomous. The steering wheel can fold into the dashboard for when it's driving autonomously. It's also meant to be a fleet vehicle that you can summon to drive you somewhere in advance.

There's no word yet on when we'll see the LeSEE. It's worth noting that LeEco is a partner of Faraday Future.